Armati bark spirit-warning bullroarer

Source term: snorrebot

Dutch for "bullroarer".

When spirits were about, a voice rose into the air: among the Armati, in the forest country inland and southwest of Sarmi on New Guinea's north coast, a plain piece of tree bark whirled on a cord warned women and children that the spirits were near — and to keep away. The 1913 Batavia register entered it among the workaday gear of Armati life — bows, sago mallets, plaited cord bags, a fire-making wristband — and one other sounding thing: a sacred bamboo flute.

Muziekinstrument, snorrebot, een stuk boombast aan een touw, om vrouwen en kinderen voor de geesten te waarschuwen.

Musical instrument, bullroarer: a piece of tree bark on a cord, to warn women and children of the spirits.

Notulen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, deel LI (1913), Bijlage VII, p. CVII, accession 17076.

Particulars

Object

A piece of tree bark on a single cord; Bataviaasch Genootschap accession 17076, entered in the 1913 register as Armati material from inland southwest of Sarmi.

Function

Sounded to warn women and children that spirits were near.